


Embers

by grilledcheesing



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9111652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grilledcheesing/pseuds/grilledcheesing
Summary: Jyn Erso was plucked by the Rebel Alliance at the age of 16, much to the chagrin of one Cassian Andor, among the rebels tasked with retraining her. After two years at each other's throats, a harrowing near death experience will draw the two of them together — but at what cost?





	1. Chapter 1

“Scram, kid.” 

 

It takes every ounce of Jyn Erso’s willpower not to clock one Cassian Andor in that moment, but there are two factors standing in her way: one is that, despite their comparable abilities, he still outranks her; the other is that, unfortunately, they are within shouting distance of approximately half the Alliance. 

 

She sidles next to him at his table in the mess hall, sitting uncomfortably close. She means for the invasion of his space to be intimidating, and to anyone else on the base, it probably would be. But Cassian barely spares her a glance. 

 

“None of us have been  _ kids _ for a long, long time,” she reminds him. 

 

Cassian has no choice but to concede to that. Of course, he still doesn’t; the day Cassian concedes to her on anything is probably the day they both die. 

 

“It is my understanding that humans are not classified as ‘adults’ until they have reached the age of eighteen years,” pipes K-2SO. “Formally, Jyn Erso, you are still a minor.” 

 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she says, alternately wishing she could keep the smugness out of her voice and relishing in it. “I’m eighteen.” 

 

Cassian snorts. “Since when?” 

 

Jyn scowls. “Since none of your business, Andor.” 

 

If she isn’t mistaken, this time, when he does glance over, Cassian manages the briefest of nods. She’s been here for over two years now, and managed to make quite a name for herself. She’s a skilled marksman, a slick liar, and has nearly unmatched endurance; paired with her admittedly babyish, unsuspecting face, she has been more of an asset to the rebel cause than anyone thought she would be, given her past. 

 

But despite earning the respect of nearly everyone in Yavin 4 in her short time here, she has yet to have one civil conversation with Cassian Andor that hasn’t ended in one of them stalking off in a huff or reporting to one of their superiors. So the merest of acknowledgments from Cassian — even this half-nod she is getting from him now — is a victory in Jyn’s book. 

 

“My,” says K-2S0 drily, “it would be quite an unfortunate circumstance if another officer were to hear you address  _ Captain Andor _ in such a manner.” 

 

“Don’t get your circuits in a twist,” says Jyn. “He made Captain last week, he’s hardly a — ”

 

“Is there a reason you’re here?” Cassian cuts her off. “Or can I eat my meal in peace?” 

 

Jyn stops herself before she rolls her eyes, knowing it will only add fuel to the “scram, kid” fire. 

 

“It has to do with your next assignment,” she says. 

 

Cassian’s brow furrows in that distinctive way of his. “Which is classified,” he says. “And no, you’re not coming.” 

 

Jyn waits a beat. “Classified,” she repeats, nursing the word on the tip of her teeth. “Is that why is was so easy to find your charted course for Strythe in the database?” 

 

If there have been more satisfying moments in Jyn’s life than watching Cassian’s eyes widen at this, they’re not worth remembering now. “What the hell did you do?” he all but growls, his food abandoned and his face fully turning to look her in the eye. 

 

There is the briefest stutter in Jyn’s ribcage — she isn’t by any means intimidated by him, but she can’t give the feeling a name. It’s gone as soon as it comes, and her lip is involuntarily curling, happy to have one-upped him so thoroughly that she has broken through the tough guy visage he always wears around the base. 

 

“You’re the intelligence officer,” she says idly. “You tell me.” 

 

She can’t help but blink as Cassian’s fist knocks into the table, rattling the metal of his rations. “This isn’t a  _ joke _ , kid,” he says between his teeth. “You can’t just — ”

 

“Who’s  _ joking? _ ” she spits back immediately. “I came here because — ”

 

“Because, yet  _ again _ , you are directly disobeying orders, and proving you’re no more fit for a mission now than you were when — ”

 

“Andor, if you’d just  _ shut your mouth _ for a second, you’d know I’m trying to  _ help _ ,” says Jyn, careful to keep her voice low before people in the mess start to actually stare. She and Cassian fighting isn’t worth anyone’s attention anymore, but yelling sensitive information across the base certainly still is. 

 

If possible, Cassian’s scowl deepens. “This isn’t helpful. Whatever it is that you’re doing right now — ”

 

“You’re meeting with Baylthor, aren’t you?” 

 

He’s ready for her this time — his breath doesn’t so much as hitch. There is no tell to give him away. No tell, that is, to anyone but Jyn, who knows the precise location of the vein in Cassian’s temple that bulges ever-so-slightly whenever she has bested him. 

 

“The arms dealer,” she says quiety, steadily. “You’re meeting with her.  _ She’s _ the new contact they want you to make.” 

 

Silence. Cassian stabs his fork into his wholly unappetizing rations, staring straight ahead as if she hasn’t spoken. 

 

“Well,” says K-2SO unceremoniously, “she’s not wrong.” 

 

“ _ Kay Two _ .” Cassian mutters the droid’s name like it’s a swear word. Then, abruptly, he addresses Jyn without looking at her: “Fine. You’re right. But you’re not — ”

 

“She knows me,” presses Jyn.

 

“If anything,” says Cassian, gathering his mostly untouched rations, “that makes my resolve even  _ more _ firm.” 

 

“More to the point, I know  _ her _ ,” says Jyn, snapping up to follow him as he stands and walks away. “She’s dangerous — their customs are highly specific, if it decorum isn’t upheld, they’ll — ”

 

“You think I don’t know that?” Cassian asks lowly. “Why do you think they’re putting someone  _ trained _ on the assignment?” 

 

“Andor, would you just — ”

 

He rounds on her. “ _ Captain _ Andor,” he corrects her. 

 

“I just don’t want anything to  _ happen _ to you,” she blurts — stupidly, angrily, before she can fully think out all the things those words could mean. He finally stops in his tracks, and she hates him for it, hates him for it so much that she can feel the humiliation like it is pushing gravity even further into her bones. 

 

He turns to her, and there is something soft in his face, something unbridged. Something she has only seen a handful of times — the moment when he first saw her, taking her in with some brand of pity as he piloted the ship that pulled her out of an Imperial work camp; when he returned from a mission and had to tell another officer that his wife had been killed in the line of duty; when K-2SO had failed to return from a mission within the proper timeframe, and they’d all assumed he was a goner. 

 

It is as uncomfortable for Jyn to see it now as it ever has been. She is about to over-correct —  _ And that would be a waste of resources _ , she’d say,  _ after all the Alliance has done to train you —  _ but just then, a voice interrupts them. 

“Andor. Erso.” 

 

They both flinch; General Draven does not so much as blink. 

 

“My office —  _ now _ .” 


	2. Chapter 2

If Cassian had any idea when he first laid eyes on Jyn Erso what a genuine plague she would be in all the years to follow, he might have left her on that planet to rot.

Alright. He knows that isn’t true. And yes, he can acknowledge her skill, her usefulness, and a few rare moments of quiet compassion that he has reminded himself that she is, and was, a girl raised by a war — and in a vacuum of Saw Gererra’s violent vigilantism for most of it. All things considered, it’s a miracle that she is fully integrated into the Alliance at all.

But all things considered, he’d rather have an Imperial officer in the back of his ship right now than one Jyn Erso, whose eyes are gleaming and unmistakably smug as he sets his bag down in the cargo hold.

Naturally, General Draven overheard their conversation in the mess hall. Jyn is so calculating that he wouldn’t put it past her to make sure the man was within earshot; the only thing that is making her smugness even halfway tolerable is that she had no idea of the conversation Cassian and Draven had after she left his office.

“You’re upset,” Draven had said curtly.

Cassian forced his face to stay neutral. “I’m following orders,” he said in return. “Jyn will accompany us to Baylthor, as directed.”

“You don’t trust her?”

Cassian paused at this. _I do,_ was his first impulse — but he couldn’t say where it came from. Honestly, he shouldn’t trust Jyn. He trained her. He knew better than anyone on this base just how many layers of herself lay beneath the ones the Alliance thought they knew, thought they understood; in some moments, when her gaze is set somewhere far off, or she starts muttering in her sleep, he doubts if even Jyn knows herself.

Draven mistook Cassian’s silence: "Nor do I,” he said. “But I want to. And this mission — let’s think of it as a test. She’ll be close to an old contact, possibly close to Saw Gerrerra’s connections. Watch her behavior. We’ll get a much better sense of her real loyalties out in the field than we ever will by caging her in here.”

Fifteen hours and more than a few snarky exchanges later, they’re almost ready to leave.

“Jyn is coming with us?”

Cassian glances over at Thom, a fellow intelligence officer who is accompanying them. “Yes,” he says tersely.

“Isn’t three a bit much?”

“General Draven’s orders.”

“Fine,” says Thom, his gaze focused on Jyn, some twenty feet away. Then, after a beat, he adds, “But if, say, we decide that one of us has to pretend to be with her as a cover … I volunteer.”

Cassian’s spine stiffens. “Excuse me?”

Thom raises his brows, still staring over at Jyn, who undoubtedly has noticed their eyes on her by now and is ignoring them both. “Oh, come on,” says Thom, shrugging a little sheepishly when he sees that Cassian hasn’t yielded in the slightest. “You may hate her, but you have to admit, she’s — ”

“A kid,” Cassian says firmly. “And if any of us are using a cover, that is exactly what she’ll remain.”

“Andor,” says Thom, shaking his head in awe as Jyn practices shifting her blaster into sniper mode and out of it in one swift movement — too graceful and too innate for Cassian to have taught her. “That’s no child.”

Cassian grunts and resolves not to say anything more on the matter, sure that whatever he attempts to say he will regret.

“Read the mission reports, will you?” he snaps instead. “Nobody is covering as anything other than what we are. Jyn is coming because she knows the contact. And there’s not even an inch of room here to deviate from the plan. Our lives depend on it.”

Thom smirks in that careless way of his. “Don’t they always?”

Cassian just barely refrains from rolling his eyes. Thom has been a friend to him longer than most — whether by commonality or by sheer virtue of the fact that neither of them has died yet. So Cassian is used to his cockiness, his mouthiness, and his unabashed conquests all up and down the galaxy; he’s just not used to anyone talking that way about Jyn.

“She’s not going to be happy if we’re late,” says Jyn tersely, poking her head out from inside the ship.

She’s right. Cassian read through the notes extensively, and for once he and Jyn stopped sniping long enough for her to add notes of her own; Baylthor and her people were as traditional, specific, and ruthless as she claimed. They were never to make direct eye contact with anyone, first off. And, most importantly, they could not lie. Even a white lie or a joke. Apparently her people could sense lies, and when they did, they never reacted well to them.

“Be honest, be direct, and say whatever you have to say to the ground,” Jyn had told him last night. “Do exactly what she expects.”

“Anything else?” he’d asked.

“Yes,” said Jyn solemnly, her voice filling up the dark of Cassian’s quarters. “Let me do most of the talking.”

She wasn’t saying it out of pride; the Strythe truly did live in a matriarchal society, one so intense that it was considered disrespectful for men to lead a conversation when there was a woman present. And now Jyn would be a woman who was present.

Kid, he reminds himself, as he boards the ship and salutes K-2SO. Not woman.

As if she can hear the thoughts unbidden in his head, Jyn turns to scowl at him. “Who’s piloting, you or Thom?”

Cassian scowls back. “Thom.”

Her lip curls. “Good.”

She turns away from him then, and so does Cassian, headed toward the cockpit. He cannot quite account for Thom’s gaze lingering on Jyn, and cannot quite account for his anger, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The #DRAMZ will happen soon, I just wanna set the scene first, y'all. Updates will be short, but frequent. Thank you all for tuning in and for your kind comments <3 It made my day!!


	3. Chapter 3

It takes half a day for them to get there, and for the most part, everyone keeps to themselves. Thom is piloting, Cassian is on navigation, and Jyn is alternately pacing the ship and back seat steering (which Cassian would be angrier about, had she not yanked the controls from Thom just before they collided with a rogue piece of space garbage orbiting a half-junkyard planet they stopped at to gather extra medical supplies). 

  


“Damn, Jyn,” Thom exclaimed at the time, grinning with one eyebrow cocked the way Cassian has seen him do in front of women for nearly a decade. “You sure know your way around a control panel.” 

  


Cassian was only somewhat mollified when Jyn responded back with a derisive snort and headed to the back of the ship, entirely unaware of Thom’s slightly wounded expression that followed. 

  


They arrive five minutes ahead of schedule. “Wait above the atmosphere until the precise arrival time,” says Jyn. “I’ve got an eye on the clock, I’ll cue you.” 

  


“On your command,” says Thom, his voice a little lower than it should be. Cassian glances at him, his irritation dissolving in favor of genuine concern that his partner might be too distracted to be going out into the field. 

  


He doesn’t have very long to worry about it, because a moment later comes Jyn’s voice, confident and firm: “Now.” 

  


* * *

  


  


Jyn wasn’t expecting to be nervous. But as the ship lowers itself and recalibrates to adjust to Strythe’s gravity, just slightly heavier than what they’re used to at the base, she is not sure if the gut feeling she has is a result of that or some sign that something is about to go very, very wrong. 

  


She looks over at Cassian, his head bent over the navigation console, his lower lip curled into his teeth the way it does when he’s concentrating. She is startled by the comfort of it — the familiar arch of his neck, the slight tufts of mussed hair where some fellow rebel did a poor job of cutting it, the nick on the right side of his chin that he never put bacta gel on after shrapnel hit it during grenade fire on one of the missions he was training her during last year. 

  


She reminds herself that she knows everything there is to know here — about this mission, about this culture, about this man who will be, for all intents and purposes, her full and equal partner for the first time. By the time the ship lands, her face is a mask of calm. 

  


Of course, that doesn’t mean she will relax for even a milisecond of this; the Strythe are as militant in their decorum as their are violent when it it broken. Aside from that, the only anomaly here she has to account for is Thom, whom she does not know very well — but Cassian does. She hates that she is using Cassian’s confidence as a measuring stick for anything, but she doesn’t have much of a choice, either. 

  


Has she ever? 

  


The ship lands at the precise minute Baylthor requested; as the engine dulls to a stop, she finds that she has become so accustomed to Cassian turning and nodding to her in that solemn way of his that she is turning in anticipating of it before he does. This time, though, it is interrupted by Thom in the cockpit: “You ready to rumble, sweetheart?” 

  


Oh. So  _ that’s _ the score. 

  


“I’m sure he is,” says Jyn mildly, pretending the comment was directed at Cassian — which is altogether more productive than clocking him with the butt of her blaster. She glances over at Cassian, expecting his usual brand of weary exasperation at her, but his eyes are blazing and unfocused on the floor. 

  


She scowls to knock him out of it. “Look alive, Andor.” 

  


He blinks over at her. “Captain,” he mutters. 

  


There isn’t any time to go over the instructions again, but they knew that. They open the hatch immediately, subject to inspection from the Strythe militia. Cassian, Jyn, and after a beat, Thom, stand with their eyes trained to the floor, as they’d been instructed to do. 

  


“You may follow,” comes the curt voice of a Strythian man after a few minutes. 

  


Jyn leads, but only because Cassian grabs Thom’s arm to stop him before he tries. Jyn would turn to glare, but she can already feel Cassian’s anger so acutely that she knows it isn’t necessary. As much as they bicker and as often as they disagree, she’d shadowed him for so long that his temperaments had become second nature to her, like some innate extension of her world — the way she knew that clouds meant rain, or to move her hand off something hot before she fully felt the burn. 

  


Still, it rattles her how unprepared Thom seems to be. She should have turned right then and commanded him to stay on the ship, but while the Strythe wouldn’t have blinked, she couldn’t be sure Thom would obey; and any show of disobedience would have knocked the entire deal off before it even began. 

  


It is difficult to keep track of the direction they’re moving in, with their eyes carefully trained to the ground, surrounded by what seems like endless miles of sand that gives way to humid clusters of trees. But soon enough they halt, and Jyn hears a familiar voice. 

  


“My old friend,” says Baylthor, the words silvery and ethereal, betraying nothing of the brute force she was capable of. “I did not imagine I would be seeing you again.” 

  


“Nor did I,” says Jyn. 

  


“I see you are operating under your true name now.” 

  


“Yes,” says Jyn, offering no further explanation — Baylthor will ask what she wants to know, and it will be much more efficient that way. Jyn can count on this the way she has always been able to count on Baylthor, the only one in Saw Gererra’s circle who ever knew Jyn’s true identity. Among the many things they were deadly serious about, trust and discretion were among them. Jyn’s name never once left the island planet. 

  


She hears a scuffle in the dirt behind her and knows without looking that it’s Thom, fidgeting despite all of their instructions to stand at attention. She tries not to cringe. 

  


“You know that I have cut off ties with your former guardian,” says Baylthor evenly, her words seeming to hover on a razor’s edge. 

  


“Yes.” 

  


“I no longer believe in his methods,” she tells Jyn. “What do you have to say to that?” 

  


“He abandoned me in the middle of a mission and let me get apprehended by an Imperial work camp,” says Jyn, “so I have to say I agree.” 

  


There is a pause, and Jyn can feel Baylthor examining her. She isn’t sure how the Strythe detect lies — if it is something in the body movement, or their biology, or even just a shift in the air — but she does know that it is deadly accurate. 

  


“And now you’re a part of the Rebel Alliance.” 

  


“Yes.” 

  


“Tell me,” says Baylthor. “Do you believe in the cause?” 

  


Jyn’s ears burn. It is a personal question, one that she is loathe to answer even in her own mind; she did not choose to be in the Alliance. After three months of being starved and bullied and beaten into submission at that work camp, and her unexpected “rescue” could just as easily have been another life sentence. 

  


But the conflict is deeper within her than that. It is in the core of her, now that she knows what she is, and what she came from — there is not a rebel on base who doesn’t know her father is in the employ of the Imperials, or that she grew up under the thumb of a man nobody in the galaxy could name with confidence an enemy or a friend. 

  


“So at odds with yourself,” says Baylthor, not impatiently. 

  


Jyn knows Cassian isn’t looking at her — he knows better — but he might as well be. She can’t decide if it is a concession or a point of pride when she finally says, “I believe in the cause.” 

  


It is almost a relief to say it, after all this time. Still, she doesn’t miss the sharp intake of Cassian’s breath — but he is anticipating a reaction that won’t come. Jyn isn’t lying, and Baylthor knows it. 

  


“And you trust these assistants who are accompanying you?” 

  


Jyn wasn’t expecting this question, and it proves far more difficult to answer. She takes her time, delaying the inevitable; her ears burn as she says, “I trust Cassian. I do not know Thom as well, but Cassian trusts him, so I do, too.” 

  


Jyn is glad that her back is turned to the two intelligence officers as she says this. She can usually anticipate Cassian’s reactions to her, but she has never once been this honest to his face. She could imagine him surprised just as easily as she could imagine him smug, but either way, she doesn’t want to have to process it. She doesn’t want anything to  _ change _ , doesn’t want him or anyone else closer to her than they already are. 

  


Because when this all falls through — be it next week, next year, or ten years from now — and Jyn is forgotten, disposed of, it will not hurt like the last time or the time before. 

  


“You put a lot of faith in this … man,” Baylthor observes. Jyn cannot decide whether or not she is considering favorably or unfavorably, but before she can wonder about it too long, the other woman tells her, “I’ve reviewed Mon Mothma’s proposal, and appreciate her sending you in person. You do know how I am particular about my deals happening on my own grounds.” 

  


“Of course,” says Jyn. 

  


There is a pause, and Jyn hardly breathes. These are the few seconds that count, the one where Baylthor is making her final deliberation; with an unexpected pang, Jyn remembers standing in this same spot some four years ago, prepubescent and defensive and terrified out of her mind. 

  


She’s come a long way since then, for better or for worse. 

  


Baylthor takes in a breath, and it’s right in that moment that Jyn is acutely aware of someone’s eyes on her, heavy and unmistakable; someone just to her left, that cannot see without risking looking up and potentially disrespecting Baylthor. It is an unusual enough circumstance that some alarm goes off distantly in Jyn’s mind, her skin prickling just as Baylthor says, “I agree to the terms. I will send details for payment before our sun sets tonight, and arrange a time for pickup within the next week.”

  


Jyn is so distracted she just barely remembers to bow her head low. “It is our honor,” she says, her chin pressed to her chest, her heartbeat humming in her blood.

  


“Your assistants can follow my guards to load the samples into your ship while you return to it.” 

  


Baylthor leaves them then, as do her guards with Cassian and Thom in tow. Briefly alone, Jyn finally hazards a glance toward the spot where someone stared her down, but the space is empty. 

  


Immediately her shoulders stiffen. She did not imagine that gaze. But by the time realizes what is happening, it is too late — she feels the press of a blaster against her back. 

  


Jyn closes her eyes for the briefest of moments. She is unarmed. And the success of the deal aside, this is clearly not one of Baylthor’s people; all of their planning could not have accounted for whatever is happening right now. 

  


In the course of a second, Jyn considers her options. She could call out, and put her fellow officers and this extremely important deal at risk, not to mention her own life. She could try to disarm her captor, but she is not wholly confident she would succeed. 

  


“Face me,  _ Dawn _ .” 

  


It’s a woman’s voice. Jyn doesn’t recognize it, there is no doubt that the woman recognizes her. Few people would know that alias otherwise. 

  


Jyn turns, slowly, and looks into the eyes of a woman who cannot be much older than herself; into the eyes of a woman whose gaze is unmistakably twisted with hatred, and is decidedly not of Strythe. 

  


“You don’t even recognize me, do you?” she asks, her voice full of dark mirth. 

  


Jyn resists the urge to turn behind her. If they’re doing their jobs, Cassian and Thom’s eyes are trained to the ground, and they won’t see this in time to help her anyway. 

  


“Should I?” Jyn asks carefully. 

  


The woman presses the blaster further into her ribcage, with enough force that Jyn stumbles. “Three years ago. Tattooine. You and Saw Gerrera’s lot were sent to obstruct a weapons trade to the Imperials.” 

  


Jyn doesn’t answer, racking her brain. It’s not that she doesn’t believe that it happened. It’s that she was sent on so many of these missions by the age of 15 that they all blended together in a desperate, violent blur. 

  


The woman’s hisses, “Your lot killed my partner.” 

  


Jyn doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t have enough context.  _ Were _ they trading with Imperials? Could Jyn have even been the one to fire the shot? No matter her guardian’s principles, she had always been so careful in taking lives; only when strictly necessary. Only when it was kill or be killed. But in the heat of confrontation, there is always a chance a stray blaster bolt … 

  


“Now you’ll watch me kill yours.” 

  


Jyn’s eyes widen, processing the words and then, a beat later, the motion that comes with them. In one excruciating moment, the pressure of the blaster leaves her ribs; footsteps crunch against nearby undergrowth; Cassian and Thom are coming back, and the woman’s finger is pressing down on the trigger, and —

  


Jyn does the only thing she can think to do, the only thing she has time for. She grabs the barrel of the blaster, yanks it back toward herself, and feels the hot shock of her body absorbing the blow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Bless you guys for all your comments. I was hesitant about posting this, so I'm glad people seem to be enjoying it :). HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAVING A GREAT 2017 SO FAR, Y'ALL.


	4. Chapter 4

The mental exhaustion of trying to practice all of the Strythian cultural norms is still not near enough to distract from a rage at Thom that Cassian can only describe as  _ murderous _ . If he’s being honest with himself, Thom has always been the cavalier of the two of them; but it’s rare that they have this much on the line. It’s one thing when it’s just their lives in the balance. It’s quite another when a massive, war-altering weapons deal — (and, he thinks in some private corner of his mind,  _ Jyn _ ) — are on the line as well. 

 

By the time they are trudging back to the ship, each with heavy, loaded sample weapons in tow, half of Cassian is on Strythe, and half of him is in the outer atmosphere, lecturing Thom within an inch of his life. He’s lucky they’re friends, or the mission report would be scathing. 

 

Still, Cassian knows himself well enough to know that Thom has screwed up in the past, and he hasn’t been nearly this angry about it. He can’t fully reason why this time feels so different — can’t, or won’t. And then, unbidden, Jyn’s indignant face, her cheeks aflame:  _ None of us have been kids for a long, long time.  _

 

He has to concede to their conversation in the mess hall from the day before — has to concede to all the little things she just declared right now that he knew without knowing, that he practiced without acknowledging. That Jyn truly does believe in their cause — and, perhaps more unbelievably, believes in him as well. 

 

He feels that reluctant part of himself softening to her again, but it’s different now than it was when he first met her and in the few moments since. It is more than a quiet empathy, a mutual understanding; it is respect. He has always known that, constant thorn she may be, Jyn Erso is a remarkable individual. But it has taken him until now, watching her handle this transaction not just with the calculating eye of a soldier, but the practice of a politician, that he cannot deny it any longer. 

 

She’s right. She isn’t a kid anymore — not by its strict definition or to any degree aside. 

 

It is probably self-serving of him, but he feels some measure of pride for that. When he was first tasked with training her, she was distrustful, skittish, and unpredictable. He’d tried to get her reassigned a dozen times, but Mon Mothma had insisted he was the one for the job; seeing how Jyn has grown into her role since then, he appreciates that Mon Mothma perhaps saw something in her that he wouldn’t let himself at the time. 

 

“Made it, mate,” says Thom, as their ship comes into view. “Draven is gonna — ”

 

Cassian shakes his head sharply, just once. They’re not off-planet yet. Thom quiets with a sigh, and before Cassian can fully feel his irritation, he feels something much more demanding and present. Jyn’s feet are just ahead of theirs, walking toward the ship, and something is … something is wrong. 

 

All at once, he forgets the very rules he was preaching. “Are you alright?” he says, looking up to meet her eye.

 

She startles just a bit; her face is pale, paler than it should be. “I’m fine,” she says quietly, bowing her head a bit to remind him to do the same. 

 

He doesn’t believe her, but there are eyes on them now. She walks back up the ramp to the ship with a kind of slowness that doesn’t suit her, Strythe custom or not. The gears in Cassian’s head start turning furiously — what could have happened in the three minutes they stepped away? Did someone say something to her, threaten them in some way? 

 

Cassian is relieved to board the ship, one eye on Jyn, the other on the closing hatch. 

 

“We did it!” Thom crows, lifting one of the sample weapons in the air. 

 

Jyn has gone back into the cargo hold. “Set that down,” says Cassian tersely. “We need to get out of here.” 

 

“Right, right, on it,” says Thom jovially, completely ignorant of the tension stifling the air around them. 

 

“Jyn?” Cassian calls back. “Are you — ”

 

“Checking on the fuel,” she answers back. Her voice is steady, or maybe it would be to someone else; but Jyn can’t lie to Cassian anymore than she can lie to the Strythians. He hears something underneath the words, something fragile and unfamiliar. 

 

They do need to get out of here, and now. Even if it weren’t for the strict docking policies on this planet, Cassian has a feeling that whatever it is that just happened, they have outworn their welcome. 

 

They clear the atmosphere in the next minute, and once the roar of it fades and Cassian checks the console to clear their path back to the base, he hears a voice pipe from the back: 

 

“The medical supplies from Proct,” says Jyn. “Where did we put them?” 

 

Cassian feels a chill go up his spine. There’s no reason for her to ask that right now, unless — 

 

“We’ve got company,” says Thom grimly.  

 

And indeed, they do. An Imperial ship, just within range, directly in their path. “Recharting course,” Cassian answers, jamming the pads of his fingers into the controls and wishing, not for the first time, that it were K-2SO beside him, and not Thom. But in his state of heightened panic, his mind seems to sharpen, and within a few minutes they have safely shaken off the other ship, going off-course a bit to lead it away from the direction of the base before sharply swinging back into their original navigation plan. 

 

Thom whoops victoriously. “Close call,” he says, turning to Cassian with another one of his oblivious smiles. “I mean, really — ”

 

“Take the controls,” Cassian mutters, standing abruptly and stalking to the cargo hold. He’s calling back to her before he’s even halfway there: “Jyn?” 

 

There’s no answer. His chest tightens, and although it is an ancient feeling, it is one he remembers all too well; like being in a fog and only just realizing he’s stepped off the edge of a cliff. 

 

The cargo hold is empty. Cassian skids to a stop, wondering if he’s lost his mind. He takes a few steps further, his eyes sweeping the confines of the ship, and then — 

 

“ _ Jyn _ .” 

 

He can only see her legs; she’s on the floor, propped up by the side of the ship, obscured by an open cabinet. Whatever he has imagined in the split second it takes to get to her, it somehow manages to be so much worse. Her full cheeks are ashen, her eyelids slipping shut, her mouth in a tight, grim line. She doesn’t look up, doesn’t even seem to register him — for a brief, excruciating moment, he considers the possibility that she is already dead. 

 

“What happened?” he asks, crouching low, his hands hovering over her but not sure what to do. He’s shaking. Damn it. He should be reassuring, should be calm, but every thought he can conjure is just a  _ scream _ — ”What is it, Jyn, tell me … tell me what to — ” 

 

“I’m sorry,” she manages to gasp out, “It didn’t — I just thought … if I …” 

 

She peels back her hand from her stomach then, and he sees now what the black fabric of her shirt obscured: her palm is dripping red. He follows it to her abdomen and sees that it’s shimmering even in the dark of the cargo hold, soaked. 

 

“It’s okay,” he starts murmuring before he can even get his bearings. “Hey, kid, it’s going to be fine, you’re okay — ”

 

Jyn lets out a weak, mirthful laugh. “You don’t have to … I’m not …”  _ Afraid _ , she was probably going to say, but her breath hitches before she can, and they both know she’d be lying.  

 

Bacta gel. She was right to come back here looking for it; she was  _ colossally _ stupid for coming back here alone. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asks, his voice low, his hand unconsciously skimming her clammy forehead as he roots around in the cabinet for the supplies. “I need to know what kind of — ”

 

“Blaster shot,” she says through her teeth. 

 

“Aye,” he says, as if this is normal, as if her breaths aren’t coming in awful, shallow rattles and his heart isn’t in his throat. “We’ll gel it, we’ll bandage it, and Thom will reroute us to — ”

 

“Kriffing  _ hell _ .” 

 

“Thom,” says Cassian, half-furious at the other man for losing his composure so fast and half-relieved that he’s within earshot now. “Find the nearest planet we can get her help.” 

 

Thom’s mouth snaps shut again. “On it.” 

 

Cassian turns back to Jyn, who has never seemed more impossibly small than she does in this moment, pushed into the corner of the ship like a bloody rag doll. “I’ve got you,” he tells her, lifting up the hem of her shirt a few inches to expose the wound. The bleeding is so profuse that he can’t even find the source of it. 

 

“The blaster,” Jyn is trying to say, “it’s not a … normal …” 

 

Her eyes slide shut. 

 

“Hey,” says Cassian, louder than he means to be, unable to stop himself. It’s not the first time a partner of his has been compromised in the field — people have  _ died _ on him, and Thom’s come close more once — but the calm he seemed to be able to find then is so far gone that he feels like that all happened to somebody else. “Stay with me, kid, okay?  _ Hey. _ ” 

 

He shakes her by the shoulder and her eyes flutter a bit, the smallest relief that there ever was. He tries to mop up the blood with a rag to figure out where to put the bacta gel, but even that is a stop-gap — she’s running out of time — 

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, the words slurred and barely audible. He feels something warm on his wrist; her hand, stalling it, or holding it, or both. It takes him a beat to understand what it means — she knows she is going to die. She is telling him to give up. 

 

“ _ No _ ,” he says emphatically. “Not like this. Do you hear me? This isn’t how you go, Jyn, this isn’t —  _ Jyn! _ ” 

 

Her lips are blue. He doesn’t understand it. He has seen too many blaster wounds in his 22 years, but nothing like this, and for a moment he has some reassuring, unwelcome thought — this is all a dream, maybe — he hit his head on Strythe and is hallucinating it, because this can’t be happening, so fast, so brutal, so — 

 

She isn’t breathing. Cassian unleashes a string of curses, some he hasn’t uttered in over a decade, not since he left his home. 

 

He does the only thing left to do, and proceeds with the scant medical training they were given back at the base. But no amount of training could prepare him for the slack of Jyn’s slight chest as presses rhythmically into it, for the limpness of her body as he leans forward, tips her mouth open, and tries to fill her lungs up with air. 

 

“Please,” he mutters — to the universe, to Jyn, to the  _ Force _ , if he has to. 

 

Instead, he gets Thom. 

 

When the shadow of the other man falls over the cargo hold, Cassian looks up at him and all but screams, “Why aren’t you  _ landing the ship? _ ” 

 

“The blaster shot,” says Thom, ignoring him. “I think I’ve seen this before.” 

 

Thom starts scrambling through the supplies from Proct, and Cassian almost laughs, something manic and awful rising up from the base of his chest. It’s over, then. It’s  _ over _ . Thom’s bacta patches won’t do anything more than Cassian’s did, can’t keep a heart beating, can’t put breath back into empty lungs. 

 

And then, for those next few excruciating moments, Cassian is split in two places at once: here, begging Jyn not to die, and in the past two years, when a few times he’d wished she would. It comes in flashes — her pale, gaunt face as she stumbled into the Alliance ship that took her from the work camp, when she refused to speak the entire six hours there; the shock of the anger teeming just under her skin the first time he’d tried to train her, and she spat back at him that she’d had enough training for a lifetime, before unceremoniously knocking the blaster out of his hand and pointing it at his head; their first time out in the field, when she quietly, unrepentantly disobeyed orders to go back to the ship, and pulled a little boy out of the crossfire. 

 

The moments in between — the curl of her smirk, the cutting assessment of her gaze, the way she refused to let anyone walk ahead of her, even for a moment. The carelessness of her words that never met up with the fierceness of her actions. That one quiet ride back from a mission gone wrong, when she caught the tear streaking down his cheek and wordlessly thumbed it away before keeping everyone out of the cargo hold for the next ten minutes while he collected himself. 

 

The way he always knows, like another sense, where she is on base at all times; the way he sometimes gravitates toward her, knowing that even when they hate each other most, they still understand each other best. 

 

Two years ago, he would have done anything to get rid of her. Now he does not want to fathom a life without her. 

 

Thom pushes him aside, and before Cassian can so much as draw in the breath to curse at him, he stabs Jyn in the shoulder with a syringe and presses down on it, hard. 

 

“What are you …?” 

 

Thom glances back at him. “The blasters on Strythe,”  he says, looking unsure of himself even as he says it. “They aren’t just bolts. They’re radiated. Even if someone is shot in a non-vital area, it’ll restrict oxygen to the heart, and — ”

  
In that moment, they’re both interrupted by the most beautiful sound Cassian has ever heard: Jyn’s eyes snap open, and she  _ breathes _ . 


	5. Chapter 5

The first time Jyn wakes up after they arrive back at the base, she isn’t sure if she’s truly awake. She has the vague sensation that she’s choking again, and feels the involuntary lurch of her body before she feels a hand on her forehead, gently but firmly pushing her down. There is a brief and heartbreakingly hopeful instant that she thinks  _ this is it, then — this is really it _ , and that it must be over, and it maybe it is her mother, easing her into whatever it was that Jyn stopped believing in a long time ago. 

 

But the hand is too rough, too warm to be her mother’s, and the smell is too sterile, and she can hear the rhythmic, distant beeps of machines. 

 

She’s alive. She should be relieved. But she falls back into darkness before she can feel much of anything at all. 

 

The next time Jyn wakes up, it is with alarming awareness. Her eyes fly open with such urgency that she might have just been sleeping and realized she’d missed her alarm. She tries to get up before the room is even fully in view, and there are those hands again, bracing her by the shoulders and pressing her back down. 

 

She tries to push back, but she’s too weak, already winded before she can try. 

 

“Hey,” she hears Cassian saying. Her eyes fly to meet his, and finally the room seems to level itself out, take proper shape around him. “It’s okay. It’s just me.” 

 

She lays there, panting, staring at him. 

 

_ Oh, kriff. _

 

She tries to turn her head to look away, but can’t quite manage it before her cheeks redden, before she feels the excruciating heat of her own humiliation from the ache in her chest to her toes.  _ How long has she been here? _ Cassian looks so thoroughly exhausted that she assumes it’s been a long time, assumes it was  _ his _ hand she felt in those moments hovering out of the not-quite-asleep, and all at once it is too much to bear. 

 

She can’t look at him. She  _ can’t _ . 

 

“You — should I … are you feeling alright? Should I get a med-droid?” 

 

“No,” she manages, her voice hoarse. 

 

Cassian reaches for something — a glass of water, by her bed — and in the split second he looks away she is bombarded by an unwelcome memory: of those first few, gasping breaths she took on the ship, senseless and terrified; how she had sobbed into Cassian’s jacket like a child, and how he’d gathered her up and let her, murmuring things that she can’t remember now until she finally faded out again. 

 

She can’t undo it — the weakness he saw then, the weakness he is seeing now. All these years she has spent trying to convince him of her worthiness, undone in an instant, by an enemy she didn’t even know she had made. 

 

She can’t decide what is worse: that he has seen her weakness, or that she know owes Cassian Andor a debt she can never repay. 

 

She takes the glass of water from him, and it somehow manages to soothe and burn all the way down, the muscles of her throat still aching from the ventilator. He’s watching her carefully, his eyes weary and heavier than she’s ever felt them. It occurs to her that he is every bit at a loss for words as she is. 

 

“Close call,” he finally decides on, with this ghost of a smile on his face, like he’s not quite sure if she can handle a real one. “For a moment I thought you …” 

 

“Thank you,” she says stiffly. It doesn’t come out the way she wants it to, the way she means it. She clears her throat and makes herself look him in the eye this time, but the expression on his face nearly stalls her all over again; his eye are red-rimmed, bloodshot, like he dragged her out of hell and left some of himself behind. “You — you saved my life.” 

 

Cassian shakes his head, and the bitterness of it isn’t lost on her. “It was Thom who figured out how to — ”

 

She doesn’t know if it’s the drugs, or the exhaustion, or if now that she has stained this man with her blood, snot, and tears, she has simply lost all sense of shame, but she reaches out and puts a hand on his wrist. He startles a bit, staring at it and then back up at her. There is something haunted in that look, something she doesn’t understand. 

 

“Thank you,” she says again. 

 

He looks away from her then, blinking into his lap. “I’m just glad that … “ 

 

Whatever it is he’s going to say, it evaporates in the air between them. Jyn pulls her hand away, and there is some quiet acknowledgement then that whatever they felt or are feeling about what happened on the ship, they’re done talking about it. 

 

“Jyn, what happened?” 

 

She would smile, if she weren’t still so rattled. Usually his  _ Jyn, what happened? _ was punctuated with irritation, snapped in the aftermath of some recklessness. Now it is quiet and urgent — and about to cause trouble. 

 

“It wasn’t any of the Strythe. It didn’t — it won’t compromise the deal,” she assures him. 

 

“I don’t care about the deal,” he says at once. 

 

Cassian’s gaze is expectant; she sees the gradual shift from whatever they were on that planet — partners? friends? — back to what she has always been to him. A trainee. A nuisance. A  _ kid _ . 

 

“Jyn,” he prompts her. 

 

She looks away from him, toward fidgeting hands on her lap. “I’ll tell General Draven when he comes for the mission report.” 

 

Cassian is surprised before he is angry, his eyebrows raising. “A mission report that I’ll see the moment you give it,” he reminds her. 

 

She shakes her head, then thinks the better of it; everything still aches, and even that slight movement makes the room seem to shift unpleasantly. 

 

“I … doubt if that’ll be true,” she says carefully, making herself look him in the eye so he knows that there is no mockery in hers. 

 

It doesn’t matter. There is the fire that she knows so well, the one that perpetually seems to burn her, but in the quiet moments is the only thing that keeps her warm. 

 

“Jyn,” says Cassian, in some failed effort to keep his tone under control. “You said out there that you trusted me. Don’t you?” 

 

Her voice is soft, softer than she intended. “You know I do.” 

 

It leaves him with nowhere else to go, no match to start a fire. He takes a breath like he’ll say something anyway, but it leaks out of him just as quickly, his dark eyes on her in some new way that she cannot quite discern and cannot tell whether she likes or not. 

 

“Then trust me now,” he compels her. “Jyn, whatever it was that happened out there — ”

 

At first the interruption seems like a small mercy. Jyn cocks her head toward the door, expecting a med-droid, or one of her few friends here, or even Draven, coming to collect her report. Instead, she is thrown off by the company of Mon Mothma herself. 

 

“Senator,” Cassian stammers, on his feet before Jyn can fully process what’s happening. 

 

“Captain Andor,” Mon Mothma greets in return, nodding her head. “Would you mind if I spoke with Jyn for a few minutes?” 

  
Cassian closes his mouth and opens it again. “Of course,” he relents, seeming to remember himself. He collects his odds and ends and leaves the room, but not before looking back at her for a few poignant beats — whether out of concern or frustration, Jyn may never be able to tell. 


	6. Chapter 6

Cassian would feel worse about eavesdropping outside the door, but the med-droids make no move to stop him. In fact, the eavesdropping is so easy that he might have suspected that Mon Mothma was allowing it. The door was left open and nobody so much as batted an eye. 

 

“Before you say anything,” says Mon Mothma, “you should know — there is security footage of what happened on Strythe. Baylthor sent it to me herself, out of concern that we might think that it had anything to do with her people.” 

 

“I know it didn’t,” comes Jyn’s weak reply. 

 

A pause. Cassian can imagine the senator’s quiet assessment of Jyn, can imagine the way she nods carefully and chooses her next words. 

 

“She also wishes to extend her sympathies, and assures us that the shooter is in custody on Strythe, awaiting trial.” 

 

If Jyn is expected to reply to this, she doesn’t. Cassian resists the urge to lean closer to the door, in case he’s missed something. 

 

“It was someone who remembered me, from back when I worked with Saw,” Jyn admits after a moment. “She said — she said that a band of us were responsible for the death of her partner. A few years back.” 

 

“I assumed this was a likely possibility, as did Baylthor — but it still doesn’t resolve all of my questions about what happened.” 

 

Mon Mothma’s voice is curious, firm, but not at all accusatory. Cassian is relieved; he thought she might get in trouble for what happened, or worse, that she  _ deserved _ to get in trouble for what happened — because truth be told, he has no idea whether or not what happened was Jyn’s fault. 

 

“What questions do you still have?” Jyn asks hoarsely, not taking the bait for whatever it is. 

 

The next words that come out of Mon Mothma’s mouth are unmistakable, and may haunt him forever: “The footage clearly shows that the woman turned her gun on Captain Andor. You put yourself in the line of fire instead. Why?” 

 

The knowledge of it seems to puncture him, seems to suck the air out of his lungs. 

 

“That’s not really a question, is it?” Jyn says. The words are not combative, but simple and plain: “I could never let him die.” 

 

“He must mean a great deal to you,” says Mon Mothma mildly.  

 

Cassian knows what Jyn may not — that this is a test of sorts. That Mon Mothma is pressing further than Jyn’s loyalty to Cassian — a loyalty that, until this moment, he could never have fathomed the depth of — and trying to assess Jyn’s loyalty to the broader cause. 

 

“Of course,” says Jyn, and Cassian cringes. She has answered incorrectly. He should be upset, even ashamed, that the girl that he trained is now prioritizing his life over the rebellion at large, but something in his heart cinches at those words, so much so that he’s not prepared for her mumble that follows: “I’d do the same for anyone here.” 

 

Cassian closes his eyes and releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He should be relieved. He is. 

 

He is. 

 

Jyn is a soldier. He is her superior officer. Nothing more, and nothing less. 

 

Cassian hears beeping in the room, and knows from years of hearing that sound that it’s someone summoning the senator out of the room. Before Mon Mothma can even open her mouth to say her goodbyes, Cassian snakes around the corner and clears out of the medical wing with the precision of someone who knows exactly how to make himself disappear. 

 

* * *

 

It takes two days for Jyn to get cleared out of the medical wing, and less than that for Cassian to want to kill her all over again. 

 

He wouldn’t have even known what she was up to if he hadn’t been so restless the past few days. Despite barely sleeping through Jyn’s entire ordeal, he can’t quite catch up with his routine. Every time he closes his eyes and has a spare moment to think, he is replaying Mon Mothma’s words in his mind, or at least some variation of them:  _ The footage clearly shows that the woman turned her gun on Captain Andor. _

 

If he does get to sleep, it’s hardly a triumph. He has always been a vivid dreamer, ever since he was a child, and now his unconscious mind is plagued with the image of Jyn, unbreathing and immovable, her hands and her stomach stained with blood. 

 

He wakes up from another one of those dreams with the intention of grabbing something from the caf — an apple, a glass of water, any excuse to move around the base and not be alone in his quarters — when he hears the ruckus. 

 

“Three, two, one, DRINK!” 

 

He knows what’s happening before he knows who it’s happening to — it’s a tradition on the base. Whenever someone evades death, a few of the rowdier officers will gather together after hours and make an absolutely vile concoction aptly called a “Sith scorcher,” which the death evader will then consume in celebration. Cassian was roped into this exactly once with Thom after the first of their close calls, then realized that the resulting hangover was worse than the death they avoided in the first place and has kept himself out of it ever since. 

 

“Go, short stuff, go!” 

 

“Are you  _ sure _ she’s humanoid?” 

 

“Don’t ever let it be said that Jyn Erso can’t hold her liquor!”  

 

Cassian slaps the access pad to the caf with nearly enough force to knock it off the wall, and there, indeed, precariously perched on the shoulders of Thom, is one  _ incredibly _ drunk and barely recovered Jyn. 

 

For a moment nobody sees him, which is probably for the best. He doesn’t know who to direct his anger at — Jyn, who knows better than this? Thom, who has a teenage girl teetering on his shoulders? The group of far more adult rebel officers, many of whom outrank him, who are  _ encouraging _ this display of utter idiocy? 

 

He opens his mouth to snap at them both, but Thom is parading through the room like they’re in some trashy club in Coruscant. Someone offers Jyn another glass of something, and she teeters a bit on Thom’s shoulders, leaning down to accept it. 

 

Even from the door, Cassian can see that her face hasn’t regained enough of its color, that she’s far too weak for this. Whatever he was about to say dies on his lips; in an instant, his anger has dialed up to concern. He’ll deal with Thom and the rest of these sons of banthas later. Right now his priority is — 

 

“Oh,  _ kriff _ — ”

 

Thom loses his balance, and in an instant the two of them are tumbling, Jyn headed straight for the ground. But Cassian scoops her up off of Thom so seamlessly and hoists her over his shoulder that the whole thing might have been choreographed that way. 

 

“Hey, what the — Andor, where do you think you’re going?” shouts Thom. 

 

Cassian doesn’t look back at him. “She’s done.” 

 

“Put me  _ down _ , Andor, or I’ll — ”

 

“I said you’re  _ done _ , Jyn,” he says, shifting her slightly on his shoulder so he doesn’t drop her. Nobody else tries to stop him as the doors to the caf slide open, and if anybody who passes them in the hall on the way to Jyn’s barracks has any comment on the matter, they wisely keep it to themselves. 

 

“You’re mad,” says Jyn, her voice muffled in the back of his jacket. “You’re mad, mad, mad — ”

 

Cassian rolls his eyes. “And you’re wasted.” 

 

“Excellent assessment,  _ Captain _ .” 

 

They’re alone enough in the hallway now, so he sets her down on her feet, trying to be gentle about it even though it is taking every effort not to grab her by the shoulders and shake her right now. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demands. 

 

“Thom said it would be fun,” she says, her words a little slower than usual, her eyes gleaming in the dark. He’s never seen this version of Jyn, and he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. Her smile is wide and uninhibited, like some layer of herself has been cast away. For a moment she almost looks like the child he keeps accusing her of being. “And it  _ was _ . Until  _ you _ showed up.” 

 

“I’m sorry if my regard for your health is  _ inconvenient _ to you, kid, but — ”

 

“Oh, please,” says Jyn, laughing out loud — too loudly for the hallway at this time of night. He raises his hands to shush her, but the words fall out of her too fast: “You don’t give a  _ damn _ about me, Andor.”

 

He is stunned enough that she might have slapped him. “How can you even — ”

 

“You think I don’t know how many times you tried to get rid of me? Well, I do,” says Jyn, the smile teetering now onto an edge that he should have seen coming. “Kay-Two told me.  _ Sixteen _ times.”

 

The truth of it seems to echo through the low-ceilinged hallway in a way words shouldn’t be able to, and all of a sudden Jyn looks anything but drunk. She is panting, accusatory, and there is a hurt in her eyes that he understands at once is not a new one, but one he has never been allowed to see. 

 

“Jyn,” Cassian starts quietly. 

 

She shakes her head, just once, obscuring her face in the shadows. “Sorry,” she mutters, taking a step back from him. She’s unsteady on her feet. “Sorry. I know. I shouldn’t — I’m drunk. It doesn’t matter.” 

 

Cassian doesn’t even know what to say, where to start. Has he ever, with Jyn? 

 

“I just — “ Jyn’s voice is wistful, wobbly. “For a moment back there, with Thom and the others, it was almost like …” 

 

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t have to. Cassian takes for granted that he grew up among these people, that this is where he took root and grew in and around the fabric of these people’s lives and the lives they had all lost. But Jyn has been uprooted too many times to have somewhere to belong.

 

“Like home,” Cassian finishes for her. 

 

Jyn blinks like there is something in her eye, pointedly looking away from him. “Oh, kriff,” she mutters, trying to lighten her tone. “Am I a sad drunk? That’s disappointing.” 

 

Cassian quirks his lip a bit, but only for her benefit. He still feels her sadness like it has spilled out of her and into the darkness of the hallway, like it is settling into his bones. 

 

“Jyn,” he says carefully, taking a step toward her. He puts a hand on her shoulder, half to stop her from swaying, and half so that she understands the gravity of what he is trying to say. “I may have tried to get rid of you sixteen times, but I didn’t know you then. Now that I do — ” He stops himself, because he’s going too far; but then he keeps going, because he knows that loneliness he sees in her eyes, knows it all too well. “I thought you were gone, back there, on the ship. And it was the worst moment of my life.” 

 

Now it’s Jyn who is speechless, her mouth poised, half-open, like Cassian is a riddle she thought she had solved a long time ago that has another part to it.

 

He takes her other shoulder now, bracing her, because he needs to make her understand. “If we are  _ ever _ in a situation like that again,” he says, lowering his voice to a growl, “you don’t choose me. Do you understand? Of all the things you have done to upset me, taking that blaster shot for me is the worst of them. Next time, you let me die.”

 

Jyn doesn’t answer, her eyes set on his, unblinking and wide. 

 

“Do you  _ understand?” _ says Cassian.  

 

She shakes her head at him, her lower lip puckering. “I can’t lose you,” she says, in a voice so quiet he might not have heard it, had he not been so close. 

 

He knows right then that she won’t remember this in the morning. He leans in and brushes the hair out of her eyes, in a rare moment of tenderness. He has hardened himself to so many things over the years that it almost feels foreign to him now, this compulsion to make her feel better, to set her at ease; for a moment, they don’t feel like Jyn and Cassian anymore. They feel like Jyn and Cassian in some other lifetime, in some other world, where they are allowed to have moments like the one they are having right now. 

 

“Well, we may have a problem, then,” says Cassian. “Because I can’t lose you, either.” 

 

They both lean in, and for an embarrassing moment, Cassian thinks they might embrace. He isn’t sure why he is so self-conscious about the idea of her so close — they’ve been chest-to-chest and back-to-back countless times, they’ve yanked each other around like rag dolls, they’ve touched nearly every part of themselves there is to touch. But those were always combat situations, in training or out in the field, and it never meant anything other than  _ survive _ .

  
But it goes from bad to worse in the span of one heart-stopping second. Because briefly, her eyes flutter shut, and then so do his, and then, before either of them can stop themselves or fully realize the consequences of what they are about to do, they kiss. 


	7. Chapter 7

Jyn may be drunk for the first time in her life — past drunk, even, if she’s being honest with herself — but she knows the instant it happens that this moment will still be branded in her memory forever. That this will be one of those dividing lines of her life, where there is a _before_ and an _after_ , and the one inevitable, unstoppable choice that fractures the in between.

She didn’t mean to kiss him. She doubts if he meant to kiss her, either. In the split second before it happens, some reasonable, sensible part of her screams to _stop,_ but she is so tired of fighting herself. She is tired of looking over her shoulder, of the infinite backup plans, of guarding herself so tightly to the rest of the world that she isn’t sure who she is even when she is finally alone in her quarters at night.

Kissing Cassian is easy. Kissing Cassian is the first thing she has done in a long time without a second thought.

Even in the moment it first happens, she figures they will both pull away in an instant — but then they don’t. Jyn can’t quite put a name to what happens to her, because whatever it is, it has never happened before. There is some ache blossoming in her, somewhere in the pit of her stomach and rising all the way to her chest, an urgency and a warmth that she didn’t know a person could feel. She presses into him and she is instantly gratified when he presses back at once, his fingers somehow coursing through her hair, the scruff of his cheek burning her lips.

Her whole life she has been so preoccupied with finding things she can _control_ , the factors she can account for — it never occurred to her just how beautiful it would feel to come undone.

They stumble, then, and Cassian presses Jyn into the wall, and right then it is unmistakable. She can _feel_ his want for her, can feel the electric way her body responds in kind. And suddenly all the gossip in the girls’ barracks and the whispers and the things she’s read in old books and the way her mother used to look at her father, it all snaps into place, and she is so overcome with the discovery of it that her eyes fly open — right into his.

It’s the eye contact that hits them both like a brick. They pull away at the same time, stunned, wide-eyed, the pulse between them severed so abruptly that it takes Jyn a moment to remember how to breathe.

She recovers before Cassian does.

“Right,” she says, nodding at him, dusting off her uniform. She isn’t sure what else to say. If she apologizes, it’ll look like she’s taking responsibility, when she is certain that this is every bit as much his fault as it is hers. And if she says anything else — 

Well, she can’t, can she? Not now. Not ever.

“Anyway,” she says, turning to leave. She waits for a beat in case he has something to say, but Cassian looks like he’s just been run over by his own U-Wing. She ducks her head down and mumbles, “Good night.”

Then she walks as quickly as she can out of the hallway. The instant she has turned the corner and she is out of his sight, she breaks into a run. It is sloppy, and drunk, and ridiculous, and she doesn’t even know why she’s doing it, but she feels compelled. There is too much rattling inside of her right now, too much to feel, to process, to try to understand. The faster she runs, the easier it will be to convince herself to feel nothing at all.

* * *

 

 

She’s dying. She’s actually dying. Whatever happened on Strythe is nothing compared the the ripping, incomprehensible _ache_ behind her eyes, rattling between her eardrums, hammering into every one of her limbs.

So. _This_ is what it feels like to be hungover.

She blindly slams down on her alarm, and lays in bed for a moment, as the events of the night before hit her in waves: Thom, knocking down her door with a shit-eating grin; the sharp scent of alcohol, and the way it burned like fire all the way down to her stomach; the pats on the back, the cheers, the ill-advised trip around the room on Thom’s shoulders, and then …

 _Cassian_.

They kissed. He kissed her. She kissed him? She touches a hand to her lips, as if they could remember something she cannot.

She’s not going to coddle herself about this. She throws the covers off herself before she can even entertain the notion of feeling embarrassed, busying herself with the mundane tasks of getting ready, pushing through the nausea and the headache like it is happening to someone else. She downs an entire canteen of water, takes the coldest shower of her life, then yanks her hair into an unflattering ponytail and shoves on a clean uniform.

She spends one beat assessing herself in the mirror. She looks grim. Awful. As unattractive as a person can possibly look.

Good.

She is scheduled to train with Cassian this morning, one-on-one sparring, because of course she is. Their instructor recently expressed that while Jyn is notoriously good at getting herself out of scrapes, her technique is sloppy, driven by adrenaline, and not near calculating enough if she should ever find herself in a situation with a more trained fighter. Because every star in the galaxy must harbor some ill will for her, Cassian was the trained fighter that they decided to pair her up with.

Not that training with Cassian is unfamiliar to her, after two years of being intermittently under his thumb. But training with Cassian after full on making out with him the night before? That’ll be a first.

She arrives before Cassian, and can’t decide if that’s a relief or not. Whatever it is, it’s short-lived — he arrives almost a moment later, disheveled, harried, and every bit as surprised to see her as she is to see him.

And then their eyes snap onto each other’s, and Jyn feels some kind of current pass between them that she has never felt before. As if all this time she has been seeing one dimension of Cassian, and only now blinked into a world where she can see more — and it is staggering, how fast and unwelcome the thoughts come. How she lingers on the bridge of his nose, on the faint cowlick in the part of his hair, in the way his steady brow seems constantly at odds with the warmth in his eyes. How all these little things that were already so familiar to her could, in an instant, mean so much more than they did before.

It only lasts a second. Mercifully, she has the wherewithal to look away first.

“Let’s, uh — let’s just … ” Cassian clears his throat. “Let’s just get this done.”

Jyn tries not to cringe, nodding at him, or at the very least in his general direction. They take on their stances, and Jyn’s stomach reels like it _knows_ what’s coming, but then Cassian’s coming at her and she has no choice but to _move_.

This, at least, is mercifully the same. They snap back into a rhythm almost at once, the choreography of this particular dance all too familiar to her — Cassian, graceful and cutting and controlled, and Jyn, powerful and abrasive and unpredictable. He’s a little slower this morning, at least at first. She thinks he might just be easing them both into it, given the events of the night before, but after a few minutes when he’s still not up to speed she takes the opportunity to land a solid, decidedly not-for-training jab into his shoulder.

He takes a step back, scowling.

“Stop pulling your punches,” Jyn hisses at him.

Cassian straightens up, his face hardening, and only then does Jyn realize that she’s angry. That he is, too. A second passes, and then she comes at him, and when he responds, the punches are decidedly un-pulled. They are a flurry of fists, knees, and limbs, the training room seeming to disappear. She knows she is doing exactly what Cassian hates, filtering out the background, focusing too much of her energy into the fight, but the blood is rushing in her veins and her heart is slamming in her head and if she spares one shred of herself, she’ll — 

“ _Ah._ ”

The wind is all but knocked out of her, her back colliding with the hard floor, Cassian tumbling down with her. They’re still tangled together, and somehow in the process of their fall he ends up straddling her, his knees planted on either side of her waist.

“Are you okay?” he asks at once.

Her face is _burning_ , her breath coming too fast — but she’s fine, she’s _fine_ , or maybe she’s dying, because this is — this is something else. This feeling she has, Cassian above her like this, his body so close to hers, his gaze so inescapable — it’s like she has left her own body, replaced with some traitorous one with these nonsense urges that all at once become _needs_ , and she is imagining all kinds of things she has never imagined, like the warmth of his lips and the smell of the sunshine on him when he comes back from a run and how his hair falls in his eyes when he —

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says through her teeth, wriggling out from under him. She can’t be here anymore. “I — I’m — I’m done for today.”

Cassian scoffs, following her out. “You can’t be _done_ for today.”

“Well, I am,” she says.

“ _Jyn_ ,” Cassian snaps, grabbing her by the arm.

She spins around, wrenching her arm out of his grasp, and the air between them is so charged that they both know in that moment they have no choice but to walk away from it.

“You need to move past it,” Cassian says instead. “You were drunk. You didn’t mean it — ”

“ _I_ didn’t mean it?”

“Of course not,” he says, missing the point of her anger entirely. “You’re young, it happens, but we have bigger things to focus on.”

She takes a step toward him, all but baring her teeth, and is gratified by his flinch in response. “Of course we have bigger things to focus on, you _ass_ ,” she hisses, “but let’s get one thing straight — _you_ kissed _me_.”

Cassian’s mouth unhinges. “I would — I would _never_ — ”

“Never what, Andor?” Jyn snaps. She feels herself digging a hole, feels some part of herself crumbling as she goes, but she can never stop herself in moments like this. “If you think you can blame it on me because you’re _embarrassed_ — ”

“You’re a _kid_ , Jyn,” Cassian insists, throwing up his hands like he has the power to end the conversation with them. “And even if you weren’t, trust me, I would never  — ”

“Oh, drop it,” she says caustically. She isn’t expecting this, isn’t expecting the hurt, the humiliation. It was one thing to pretend it didn’t happen. She was fine with that. But seeing now just how actively embarrassed he is by her, just how vehemently he is denying it  — kriff, it feels personal. “Think whatever you want, Andor. I don’t care. But don’t you dare try to tell me that kiss was on me.”

She walks out, certain that the conversation is over. It’ll be awkward for a few days, and then it won’t be, and then eventually she’ll forget the strange hum of her body against his and they'll push past this.

Then Cassian opens his mouth, and delivers the final blow: “Whatever it was, it was a mistake. And it will never happen again.”

The words pluck some unexpected, tender part of her. It isn’t like a normal hurt, the kind that stings and fades into an ache. It hurts, and it hurts, and it keeps hurting, all the way out to the hall, to the barracks, to some part of her so far within that it doesn’t even have a name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, your comments and kudos mean more than you know. Thanks so much for reading :). SORRY NOT SORRY FOR THE DRAMZ


	8. Chapter 8

Jyn has disappeared from Yavin 4.

 

Or at the very least, that is the only conclusion Cassian can draw after three solid days of not seeing her once, which he is almost certain is the longest he has ever gone without seeing her when they were both on the base. It is clear she is avoiding him, and succeeding at it. When he goes to the caf at her usual time, her space is occupied by a group of older officers. When he gets up an hour earlier hoping to catch her on her way out to run, he’s so distracted he ends up running straight into a swamp puddle. When he shows up outside of a training session he thought she would attend, it turns out that she’s been reassigned.

 

Cassian can’t figure out what’s more frustrating — the fact that he can’t find her, or that he has no clue what he’ll say to her when he does.

 

On the fourth Jyn-less day, Cassian is walking out of the caf when Thom’s familiar arm pats him on the back and then ropes around his shoulder.

 

“Your girl Erso?” says Thom. “She has _insane_ skills with a blaster. I just watched her shoot a mannequin between the eyes with her damn _back_ turned.”

 

Cassian bristles, the words “ _your girl Erso_ ” striking some dissonant chord in him. “Hm,” he says in agreement, not trusting himself to say anything more.

 

“She sure didn’t learn that from _you_ , that’s for sure,” says Thom with one of his cheeky grins, squeezing Cassian’s shoulder before letting him go.

 

“Yes, that is for sure,” says Cassian, forgetting to be offended. It’s the first time he’s known where Jyn is all week.

 

“She talk about me ever?” Thom asks, not even bothering to lower his voice. He’s still grinning, like the whole thing is a joke. “I’ve seen her a few times since that whole thing on Strythe, and I know you two are — ”

 

“We’re what?” Cassian snaps.

 

Thom’s brows furrow. “In the same unit,” he says. “I mean, you guys train together, right? Weren’t you the one who recruited her?”

 

 _Sprung her from a work camp_ , Cassian thinks to himself — for members like Jyn, there was no recruiting. It was join the rebellion, or wait to die someplace else.

 

He swallows at that thought, hard. “Yeah. I’ve got to — I have a meeting,” he mutters, turning abruptly on his heel and heading toward the shooting range, on the off chance that Jyn is still there.

 

He still doesn’t have a plan for what he’s going to say. He supposes it depends on her. If she acts like nothing happened, then he will, too. If she’s upset with him — well. A part of him is already irritated for it, because the whole thing is so _juvenile_ , but the louder, more insistent part of him knows that he entirely deserves it. She was right. He was an ass.

 

And more to the point, he was a liar.

 

Because in the moments when he isn’t seething, or guilty, or any number of things he has felt about Jyn Erso in the past few days, there is no denying the sneaking, unwelcome truth underneath it all: he can’t stop thinking about that kiss. He can’t stop thinking about the pale green of her eyes looking up at him, can’t stop thinking about the bitter quirk of her smile, can’t stop thinking about the heat of her little body pressed between his and the wall.

 

And maybe — and maybe it was her fault, that it happened. But it certainly wasn’t her fault that it _kept_ happening. Cassian knows in his bones there is nobody to blame for that but himself, but it’s the kind of blame he doesn’t know how to swallow. He prides himself on his ability to detach, to resist, to pull himself out of his own needs and his own wants for the better of their cause. It’s the reason he is so valued here, the key to his success — the reason he’s still alive when so many others are not.

 

One kiss from Jyn Erso was all it took for him to lose everything he thought he was.

 

But that’s his problem — no, that _was_ his problem. It won’t be a problem anymore, because he won’t let it be. The problem isn’t resisting that strange pull he felt in that hallway with Jyn. The problem is that he over-corrected, he said things he didn’t mean, and he hurt her.

 

Worrying about it is a waste of his time. He knows that. And if it were anyone else, he probably wouldn’t spare it a second thought — but Jyn isn’t anyone else. For whatever reason, this is weighing on his conscience, and it is only going to distract him until it doesn’t.

 

That’s the plan, then. Talk to Jyn. Apologize for the way he phrased things. Take responsibility. Move on.

 

Or at least that’s the plan until he actually sees her. She’s still at the range, but she must be done for now; she’s sitting on a bench, her boot propped up, her nimble fingers tightening the laces. Her perpetually askew hair has half-escaped from its bun, still frizzy from the jungle humidity, sticking to the nape of her neck. She pauses, and in that beat he knows that she senses him there, that she knows exactly who it is before she looks up.

 

And when she does, Cassian’s entire plan falls out the window.

 

She regards him for a moment, her expression uncharacteristically open, as if she is waiting for his cue. He blinks back at her, the words drying up, lost to him before he can even open his mouth.

 

“Captain,” she acknowledges, her voice neutral.

 

It feels like a door slamming in his face. He straightens his back. “Jyn,” he says, nodding.

 

They are entirely alone. There is nothing stopping him from saying what he has to say, except for the pulsing, inescapable thought coiling in his chest, stinging the back of his eyes: she is somehow changed to him, somehow inevitable, somehow a deeper, more painful reflection of himself than he can stand to see.

 

In one senseless, stupid moment, it seems impossible not to kiss her. It seems impossible to keep moving forward, to pretend it never happened. It seems impossible to sever whatever it is between them, taut and charged and permanent, like it has been holding him in place long before he knew she was on the other side.

 

He nods again, and she looks away, letting him leave.

 

* * *

 

 

An hour later he is in Draven’s office, volunteering for a recruiting mission off-planet. He has long filled his quota for the month, but he is itching, teeming, spilling over. He needs to get off Yavin 4, now.

 

“This might be a good opportunity to take Erso with you,” Draven suggests. “You think she’s ready to recruit new blood?”

 

Cassian doesn’t look the general in the eye. “Next time,” he says, excusing himself to prepare his U-Wing.

 

The recruiting mission takes a little over a week. He makes a few promising connections, and for once doesn’t run into any trouble — that is until, seemingly out of nowhere, all of his channels of communication back to Yavin 4 are blocked. He sits in the cockpit of his U-Wing for an excruciating few minutes trying to decide what it means.

 

Should he rush back to the base to help with whatever is happening? Or have they been compromised?

 

He knows his wisest option is to wait, but there is no satisfaction, no sense of purpose in the waiting. _What could have happened?_ He understands that they are at war — hasn’t he been at the front lines of it his entire life? — but something happening to the base seems unfathomable. He doesn’t want to think about it, won’t _let_ himself think about it, not until he gets some kind of news.

 

After a few minutes that seem like hours, he receives a message on his comm — not one that is meant for him, but meant for anyone who is offplanet and connected to the channel. The message is encrypted, but he knows the meaning before he decodes it: _All officers report back to base._

 

The small shred of relief is short-lived. Yes, there is still a base to return to, but in what condition? It takes a solid day to get there, a solid day of hoping, bargaining, and worst case scenarios, and the irregular beat of his heart growing louder all the time: _Jyn, Jyn, Jyn._

 

When he finally arrives, he is stunned to find that nothing looks too amiss. He lands, and by the time he scrambles out of the cockpit, another officer is debriefing him.

 

It wasn’t their base that was compromised, but the meteor they’d been docking on between long distance supply runs. It had been discovered by several Imperial ships, and more than a few key members to the Rebel Alliance had been held hostage — as many units that were available to volunteer were dispatched immediately to attempt their extraction.

 

“And?” Cassian prompts, getting ahead of himself.

 

If the other officer is annoyed at his impatience, he doesn’t show it. “Some were extracted. The meteor is under Imperial control now. Almost every unit returned back to the base.”

 

“Which ones didn’t?” Cassian demands, the pit in his stomach growing larger by the moment.

 

Because it doesn’t take very long for logic to catch up to what he knows in his gut: As many units that were available. A hostage situation, requiring sharpshooters and snipers with impressive aim and experience in combat. And one restless, determined, aptly skilled girl that be left behind.

 

The other officer pulls up a report on the monitor. Thom’s U-Wing is missing. Three others were aboard — junior officers, barely past trainee, and one name glaring back at him: Jyn Erso.

 

Draven is apparently expecting him before he even knocks on the door.

 

“Captain Andor — ”

 

“Have they made contact? Do you still have a signal from the ship?”

 

His face is resigned, almost pitying. Cassian wonders when he became someone fragile enough to warrant this expression.

 

“We haven’t made contact with them in three days,” says Draven grimly. “I’m sorry, Captain Andor. I know they were your friends.”

 

 _Were_. The word knocks the wind out of him, pulls him some place he cannot fathom being. “Why haven’t we dispatched a team to — ”

 

“It’s Imperial territory now. The risk would be too great.”

 

“Too great to save trained, valuable, _loyal_ members of the — ”

 

“Captain Andor,” says Draven, his voice lower than Cassian’s but somehow more commanding than ever. “You know better than anyone how many valuable members of the rebellion we have had to sacrifice for the cause.”

 

* * *

 

 

Cassian is a man who follows orders. It’s all he’s ever done, all he’s ever known. He might not have any control of his life, but he has control over this: the knowledge that whatever he is doing, it is for the greater good.

 

It isn’t enough anymore.

 

For the first week, he barely sleeps, he barely eats. His superiors mostly leave him alone; they have seen stronger soldiers than Cassian go off the rails after something like this. On more than one occasion, he considers overriding his own access to the hangars and flying out on his own, but he knows what that would mean — he’d be stripped of his title, his duties, his ability to make any difference in the universe.

 

Objectively, he knows that Jyn’s life is not worth the lives of however many countless people he is trying to save. But objective does nothing to ease the weight that settles on his chest, the rattle between his ears, the echo of her voice in the back of his head: _You don’t give a_ damn _about me, Andor_.

 

A month passes. Eventually Draven loses his patience, puts Cassian back out into the field. But he is duller, slower, a beat behind his old self — the close calls are even closer, the odds worse than they’ve ever been.

 

But despite the barely evaded blaster fire, the outnumbered fights, the hyperspeed chases, there is nothing quite as dangerous as his hope. It is small and delirious, stumbling in the dark, reaching for holds that aren’t there, but Cassian can’t stop himself. In those brief moments between his miserable awake and his haunted asleep, he cannot help it: imagining them alive. That Thom and Jyn and those other two officers are in hiding, waiting for their chance to steal a ship; or in some distant corner of the galaxy, somewhere stranded but safe, trying desperately to get a signal out; that they are watching out for each other, keeping each other alive, trying to come back whole.

 

After two months, a memorial service is held for their unit. Cassian doesn’t attend. All of Thom’s brothers are dead, so Cassian inherits all of Thom’s old things — he’s not sure what happens to Jyn’s. He leaves everything untouched except for Thom’s bottle of Kowakian rum, which he downs alone over the course of one night and sorely regrets in the morning.

 

It makes no difference, whether he is offplanet or at the base, running from blaster fire or laying in his bed. _Next time,_ he’d told Draven, before he set off for the recruiting mission. He let his emotions get the better of him, and he’d left Jyn behind.

 

It’s his fault Jyn is dead. There is no way around it. Every inch of his misery is deserved.

 

There’s a knock on his door late one night. Cassian scowls, thinking he has imagined it — everyone on the base usually communicates by comm — but the knocking comes again, and a voice that he recognizes as one of the trainees back in his and Thom’s original class says, “Andor, you gotta get out here.”

 

Cassian is on his feet so fast that the room seems to lurch out from under him. He barely glances at the other officer on his way out. “What’s — ”

 

“Thom’s U-Wing,” she says, her eyes shining. “It just requested permission to land.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #BLESS you guys for reading. Someday I will be nice to our poor babes. Today is not that day. <3


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